


XXI. The Turn of the Screw

by BubblyWashingMachine



Series: Every Little Hurt Counts [febuwhump 2021] [21]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Creepy The Handler (Umbrella Academy), Eye Trauma, FebuWhump2021, Febuwhump, Gen, No Romance, Number Five | The Boy Has Issues, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy-centric, POV Number Five | The Boy, Torture, Violence, Whump, as is standard for her, at least he feels bad about it, febuwhumpday21, hello it is me once again writing five being brutally violent, threat of eye gouging
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-18 08:28:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29606676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BubblyWashingMachine/pseuds/BubblyWashingMachine
Summary: Five sits a couple feet away from the woman, the flickering lightbulb swinging above, and lines up his tools carefully on the filthy concrete floor between them. He takes his time, letting her see each one, and up this close, he can see the dawning, sickening horror etched into every micro-expression on her face.He leans back, just watching, even as Dolores screams silently at him to stop.Bleach. Screws. Spoon....Number Five's final training exam at the Commission before he's cleared as a field agent. The test is straightforward - inflicting torture to obtain information is a standard skill that any agent must be able to utilise with ruthless efficiency. And Five will do anything to get back to his family.
Relationships: Dolores & Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy), Number Five | The Boy & The Handler (Umbrella Academy)
Series: Every Little Hurt Counts [febuwhump 2021] [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2137428
Comments: 4
Kudos: 38





	XXI. The Turn of the Screw

**Author's Note:**

> hmm i love this one!! but if anyone thinks this should be counted as 'graphic' depictions of violence please let me know!! I've never really had a good grasp on what counts as graphic - side note, should my other fic about five brutally bludgeoning marcus to death be rated higher on the violence level?? - so please just know that five does torture someone, there are no knives or blood or fingernails involved, but it is kinda dark i guess i dunnoooo. hazel and cha cha seemed to be pretty good at torture so like, why not five too
> 
> I love writing the Handler's dialogue. So Much.
> 
> warning for a vague mention of someone vomiting at the end, it's not, like, described but someone vomits
> 
> enjoy..?? I think this one is really good honestly :)

“Go on, then,” the Handler says sweetly, flicking a gloved hand towards the door. “In you go.”

Number Five hesitates.

“It’s just a standard training procedure,” she coos. He already knows this – she’s told him multiple times. “All field agents have to pass – I can’t go around giving you special treatment. You want to be cleared for duty, don’t you?”

Number Five does not. And yet, he does. The repetition of her little pre-cursor speech does little to settle his stomach, but the idea of refusing is unfathomable. He can’t fail now; that would be pathetic. He clenches his jaw, and opens the door.

“Take as long as you need,” the Handler calls, her words laced in a sick kind of delight. “You have all the time in the world.” He doesn’t bother looking back to glare at her, and just slams the door shut behind him.

He hears the buzz of an electronic lock, and finds himself at the end of a long hallway, filled with identical white doors. _Doors behind doors behind doors,_ Five thinks. _Curiouser and curiouser._

Waiting in front of him is a mousey-looking technician, carrying a clipboard, who blinks at him behind thick glasses. Five feels surprised – he assumed that with all the body-swapping and genetic enhancements being passed around in this place like Monday morning gossip, that people would have no need for glasses.

Dolores says, _Five._

“This is your file,” the man says, eyeing him. “Your examination will begin when you’re ready.”

“Goody,” Five says, leaning back and gesturing for the man to move. “Lead the way, Doc.”

The technician narrows his eyes, but he walks. “No weapons of any kind are permitted into the room.”

“Fine.” He doesn’t need them.

“If you have any questions, I can’t answer them. Read the file.” He glances at the clipboard, and then comes to an abrupt halt in front of one of the indistinguishable white doors, passes the file over, and Five takes it without bothering to look, keeping his eyes on the other man. He doesn’t trust a single person at this company. “All simulations are randomly generated. Uh, you have as long as you need, but points will be deducted if—”

“Yeah, save me the speech,” Five mutters, examining the door. “I don’t give a shit.”

“Suit yourself,” the man huffs, clearly offended. He lifts his chin and straightens his back with misguided self-importance. “You know, you’re a little older than our _usual_ recruits. I wouldn’t get your hopes up – over forty-per-cent of people fail the last exam.”

Five glances back at him. “It’s in here?”

The man says, frowning, “Well, yes. But I have to unlock—”

Five couldn’t care less. He doesn’t wait for the mousey man to finish, and jumps to the other side, emerging into a room that couldn’t be more unlike the clean, white, neoclassical hallway he was standing in a moment ago.

He takes a second to adjust to the sudden change in lighting – he’s in what appears to be a leaky, dingy basement, with one flickering lightbulb hanging overhead, consistently threatening to extinguish itself.

There is a woman in the centre of the room, gagged and tied to a chair with duct-tape.

_They’re certainly committed to the aesthetic,_ Dolores notes, sounding disgusted.

Five laughs uneasily. “I think I’m over-dressed.”

At his words, the prisoner’s head jerks up, and she starts thrashing, but the chair is bolted down. Is she an actor? A traitor to the Commission? An innocent? Five avoids eye contact, flipping the pages in his hands while she screams muffled curses that he can’t make out; but the paper is almost bare.

“Aged thirty-six. Information required: the location of a shipping container carrying desirable contents,” Five reads, and then scowls. “That’s it? _Read the file_ , my ass.”

He drops the clipboard unceremoniously onto the concrete floor, and takes another look around the ‘basement’, taking a second to roll up his sleeves as he does so.

He frowns. There are loads of things to choose from here – with just a quick glance he spots a bottle of bleach, a hose, a box of screws, some wire-strippers, and a spoon. They couldn’t have made it easier if they tried.

_This is depraved,_ he thinks. He already understands why so many agents fail. This exam is meant to test his limits, but the joke’s on them – Five lost his humanity about twenty years ago. They can give him a suit and an electric razor – not a razor blade, oh no, as though he’d _give up_ after four decades of enduring hell, as though if he _really_ wanted to kill the Handler he wouldn’t just use his teeth to rip her throat out – but he is still a wild animal. He _has_ no limits.

“So what’s in the shipping container?” He asks the woman absently, trying to detach himself, fishing around inside a crate of old paint tins, knowing that she can’t answer. “Must be something important.”

_You’re stalling,_ Dolores says meaningfully, quietly. _I know you don’t want to do this, Five. You can still turn back. Don’t do this. Please, for the love of God, DON’T—_

“Didn’t you hear?” Five tells her. “I have _all the time in the world_.”

“ _Mphmhm_ ,” begs the woman.

He approaches the woman, and she cringes away. Carefully, grimacing, he leans down and unties the cloth that someone gagged her with, trying not to touch her skin. Ridiculous, really – considering what he’s there for. But he has a problem with touch, even now. He lets the damp cloth fall.

“Let me go,” the woman sobs as soon as her mouth is free. “I didn’t do anything. I don’t know anything about a shipping container. Please, don’t hurt me.”

“The file says you do,” Five says. “Which means that I’m inclined to believe that you’re lying to me.”

“I’m not,” she gasps, shaking her head violently, red and sweaty and disgusting. “I’m not. I’m co-operating. Whatever you want. Please.”

“ _Ugh_ ,” Five says, looking at the ceiling. “If you plan to keep lying, this is going to be so tiresome.”

She continues to deny knowing anything, her voice trembling, spittle flying from the force of her words. Number Five thinks of the Handler watching, the examiners, and his siblings. Would they hate him? Probably. He’s become the kind of person they’d been trained to kill.

“Where am I? What did you do to me?”

He picks up the bottle of bleach, the spoon, and the screws. He leaves the other things – he won’t need them.

The light flickers.

“Who _are_ you?”

Five tips out the crate of paint tins, and uses it as a chair, his back already starting to ache from all this bending down. He sits a couple feet away, directly across from the woman, and lines up his tools carefully on the ground in between them, taking his time, letting her see each one. This close, he can see the horror etched into every micro-expression on her face. Bleach, screws, spoon.

“Please,” she says, hollow. He swallows.

He _has_ to pass this exam. It’s all just an act, a charade to make the Handler believe he can be trusted. But that means that this woman has to believe it too.

“Here’s how this is going to work, lady. I am going to ask you one question, and you’re going to answer it.”

“I don’t – I don’t know – I’m co-operating, I just—” she breaks down sobbing. Five rolls his eyes, uncomfortable. He thinks of little Number Seven, how she would cry with her hands over her face and then laugh when he awkwardly tried to comfort her. She would be terrified of him now, and for good reason. He is despicable.

_I’m doing this for them,_ he tells Dolores, and she doesn’t need to say anything.

“Why am I here?”

“Where is the shipping container?” he asks.

“I don’t kn- _ow_ ,” she says, hiccupping.

“Come on. Just tell me. Where is it?”

“W-why? Why? Who are you?”

“That’s of no consequence to you.”

“I’m not – I don’t know anything,” she says weakly, her chin quivering as fat tears roll down her face.

_This won’t take very long,_ Five thinks, and he hates himself. Dolores remains silent. The light buzzes.

“Just tell me,” he sighs, knowing the Handler must be laughing.

“Why?”

“Because I’m asking,” he says pointedly. “And if you don’t, I’ll start hurting you.”

“I really don’t know!” She wails, thrashing. “I’m being honest!”

“Do you want me to tell you what I’m going to do?”

“No!”

“I’ll start with the bleach,” he says, “in your left eye.”

“ _No!_ ” The woman sobs. “Don’t! Please! God!”

“And if you still don’t tell me, I’ll push the screws in.”

“Wait – I do – _do_ know! The shipping container – it’s, it’s down by the docks—”

“And if you keep lying,” Five says over her, not raising his voice, “I’ll start using the spoon.”

Her mouth snaps shut, staring at him with unblinking, bloodshot eyes. He picks up the bottle of bleach, with slow, deliberate movements, and starts to undo the cap. The glass eye in his pocket feels unbelievably heavy.

“You’re – you’re _sick_ ,” she splutters, her face twisting and contorting, her upper lip shining with snot and sweat. “I have a _family_.”

“Really?” He asks, keeping his voice neutral. He pours the chemical into the cap, trying not to let his hands shake. Sometimes they fail him, these days. The smell is potent and eye-watering. She is right – he does feel sick. “So do I.”

“Please, I don’t know anything,” she whispers, the loathing draining away from her eyes, dissolving into hopeless lying. “Please, let me go. My name is—"

“I will let you go,” Five says, and he holds up the cap, “when you tell me the truth.”

“No _– no_!” She writhes, thrashing her head from side to side as the bleach gets closer.

“Where is the shipping container?” Five asks, thinking of Vanya. He won’t close his eyes. With his free hand he takes her roughly by the hair and jerks it back, holds her head still. Revulsion shivers through his bones. She stares, panting, sweating, and a vein in her forehead throbs.

“Please – my brother, maybe he knows – I can ask—”

“I want _you_ to tell me.”

“I don’t _know_.”

“I think you do.”

“I won’t tell you anything,” she spits.

He bares his teeth. “I don’t believe you.”

Five pours the bleach into her left eye, and she screams, the sound tearing from her throat.

“Where is the shipping container?”

She doesn’t answer in human words, just horrible animalistic noises. He closes his eyes for a second. He feels a little dizzy.

“Where is it? Just tell me where it is and I’ll stop.”

She sobs, her chest heaving, her left eye burning and bubbling and sizzling. “Fuck you,” she howls, gagging.

“Tell me.”

“Are you – going to – _kill me_?”

He feels his hands shaking, the cap slipping from his grasp, and hears it clatter and roll away into the dark corner of the basement. “I don’t see any use in that.” He thinks of Luther, tearing a man’s glass eye right out of his head with his bare hands.

“I’ll never tell,” she mumbles, quite incoherently. The burns on her face bleed and ooze like a blistering sore. “Go to hell.”

“Been there,” Five says, picking up the box of screws and selecting one. He rolls it between his thumb and forefinger and then holds it up into the light to show the woman. “It didn’t agree with me.”

By the third screw, she breaks.

…

The mousey technician shies away from him when Five comes out, and fumbles to catch the clipboard when Five tosses it to him. He’s scrawled the location of the shipping container in his shitty handwriting, over the dotted line given, like it’s the answer to a pop-quiz.

She’s not there waiting for him – he doesn’t know why he though she would be. Instead, he has to go to her office himself. He thinks it might be a power play of some kind. No one tells him what is going to happen to the woman in the basement now, and he doesn’t ask. A means to an end, that’s all she was, he reminds himself.

The Handler’s office is spotless and light.

“Well _done_ , Number Five,” the Handler croons, petting the side of his face. He won’t allow himself to push her away – what would the point be? He’s done worse things for this job, now, than withstand a little borderline workplace harassment. “I have to say, the examiners and myself were quite impressed by your performance. It’s seems you’re a natural.”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass what you think,” Five mutters, his vision unfocused. He stares at the pictures on her desk.

“Well, that’s too bad. Do you want to know your score?”

“Not in the slightest.”

He wants to ask what’s in the shipping container, or if there ever was one – but the answer will only be _does it matter?_ To which he’ll have concede that it does not, and that truth is one he’d rather not admit out loud.

“Suit yourself,” she says, shrugging. “The important thing is that – you passed!” She claps her hands together.

_Are you proud of yourself?_ Dolores says sharply, and then, _I’m sorry. That was cruel._

“—celebrate?”

Five blinks. “Huh?”

“I asked if you have plans to celebrate,” the Handler repeats, laughing. “But it seems like someone might be needing a nap instead.”

“Don’t talk to me like I’m a fucking child,” Five says, finally stepping away from her. “When do I start?”

“Getting straight to business, I see,” she tuts, sounding dissatisfied in a way that makes Five’s stomach lurch.

“You think I’m here for fun?”

“I think you should watch your manners,” the Handler says, her voice hardening. “I’d hate for you to lose your first job the same day you get it.”

The threat is clear – a power play, indeed. Number Five swallows the burning retort on his tongue, thinking of his siblings, and she smiles knowingly.

“There’s a good boy.” The Handler turns away, a clear dismissal. “Your first assignment starts tomorrow. We have very high expectations of you.”

“Fine,” Five says bitterly, preparing himself to leave, to go back to his tiny room.

“Oh, and Five?” She looks at him, and raises an eyebrow. “Get some rest. You look positively horrendous.” A grin curves across her red lips. “Welcome to the Commission, agent.”

Number Five blinks directly into a bathroom stall and vomits into the toilet. He’s certain that he can hear her laughing at him, all the way from her office.

**Author's Note:**

> Poor Five. the things he does out of love... that poor lady though omg sorry babe adghfhjf
> 
> also. So many mysteries surrounding the Commission...
> 
> See you tomorrow! I think tomorrow's will be good, AND it has klaus in it again, which should be a fun challenge


End file.
